


to be despised, to be loved

by leere



Series: Tumblr SP Prompts [2]
Category: South Park
Genre: Crossdressing, Denial of Feelings, First Kiss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-05-16 18:48:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19323982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leere/pseuds/leere
Summary: So that’s how he ended up in a booth in the nicest restaurant in town, wearing his finest suit. Across from him is one Eric Cartman who is, of course, inexplicably in drag.





	to be despised, to be loved

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to Tumblr on 4/3/19. Title's from One and Only by Timbaland feat. Fall Out Boy, and I've wanted to name a fic that for years - fits good here, 'cause the whole song is very Kyman. Dialogue prompt was "Wanna go out with me sometime?" and my lovely friend Eva sent the ask.

When Kyle agreed to help Cartman break up Stan and Craig, South Park’s newest and strangest young couple, he hadn’t thought it would turn into a fiasco. Maybe he should’ve had the foresight to anticipate Cartman’s antics, but as it was, when Cartman had bitched about Craig and Tweek being soulmates and Craig being an entire idiot for dumping him, and Kyle had agreed that Stan deserved better than being a rebound for some aloof alternative space nerd like Craig, and Cartman had proposed they break them up, Kyle had immediately accepted without much thought. Cartman was good at schemes like that; surely he could find a way to split them easily enough. 

Kyle was an idiot for that, because Cartman could never do things “easily enough” - he just had to turn a simple little mission into a completely over-the-top and often disastrous performance, with unnecessarily extravagant costumes and everything.

So that’s how he ended up in a booth in the nicest restaurant in town, wearing his finest suit, which he hasn’t touched since his cousin Eli’s bar mitzvah last May. Thankfully it still fits, though it’s a little restrictive. Across from him is one Eric Cartman who is, of course, inexplicably in drag; a floor length deep blue evening dress, sparkly silver makeup, and a sleek blonde wig. He looks amazing, and Kyle resents him for it.

“We’ll be noticed less if we look like your average straight couple,” Cartman had explained, when Kyle had picked him up from his house and given him a look of barely contained annoyance and contempt. Then he’d said, “Oh, this almost feels like prom!” and tried to get Kyle to escort him to the car, and eventually got his way by saying, “If this is how you treat women, I can see why none of them wanna date you.” Kyle had grudgingly linked arms with him after that, and walked him down to the car - even opened the door for him, though Cartman didn’t even really need help; he could walk perfectly fine in his heels, he just liked to be irritating.

So now they’re in the booth, and Kyle’s leg won’t stop bouncing. Craig and Stan are two tables away, both wearing suits and looking like they’re playing dress up. Stan’s blabbing enthusiastically about something, and Craig looks a little bored, but he’s nodding along, prodding at a salad. Cartman had anonymously left a free reservation - how he’d acquired it, Kyle was scared to ask - in Stan’s mail box: “Congratulations! This is a ticket to a free dinner for two on Saturday September 7th, at 8 PM at our fine eatery!” as well as some finer print details, including the lie that it’d been won from a randomized lottery. It’d been addressed to Stan himself, because Cartman figured Randy might try to steal it for him and Sharon. Stan had gushed about it at school, about how he wanted to treat his mom to dinner as a late birthday present, and while Kyle thought that was immensely sweet of him and felt pretty bad about it, he’d had to dissuade him from taking her. “It’s a romantic type of place,” he’d said, feeling like a real shitty friend. “People are gonna think-” and then Kenny had helpfully pitched in, “-that your mom’s a cougar, bro!” That was all it took for Stan to decide he’d take someone else, and from there, Kyle had gently planted the idea that Stan should take his new boyfriend. 

So there they were, at a table for two.

“Dark and dark don’t go together,” Cartman’s saying, frowning disapprovingly. He keeps eyeing the bread sticks, but he hasn’t touched them, probably for fear of messing his lipstick up. “Craig needs Tweek, for, like, contrast, you know? Blonde and black. It works. You can’t have two yangs.”

“The yin is the black one,” Kyle says boredly, just to correct him, though he doesn’t know for sure. “What about Token and Nichole?”

“That’s different.” Cartman waves a hand. “Craig and Stan - have you heard that thing about white gays, uh, dating their own lookalikes? That’s - yeah, that’s Craig and Stan.”

“They don’t look alike,” Kyle frowns. “Craig’s all angular and, like, lithe, or whatever, and Stan’s kinda softer and - and wider, like. He’s sturdy. Different body types, dude. Their faces are super different, too.”

“You sound gay as fuck right now, and _I’m_  the one in drag.”

“Shut the hell up, Cartman. You didn’t have to be in drag, that was all you.”

Cartman quirks an arched brow at Kyle - if the redhead knew anything about makeup, he’d know that Cartman had glued his own eyebrows down, put foundation over them, and redrawn higher arches to achieve the alluring look he wanted; he’d learned a lot from all his hours of watching Drag Race. Kyle, however, is ignorant as hell, so he’s dumbfounded as to how Cartman pulled the look off, but incredibly irritated by how it’s impressive and almost endearing to him, that Cartman’s so good at passing as a girl. He’s a pretty one, too, all soft angles and gentle curves, his naturally pouty lips even poutier with the help of overdrawn lip liner and the pale pink of the lipstick he’s got on.

“I like being pretty,” Cartman explains simply, and Kyle scowls at him because of course he knows how good he looks. Smug bastard.

Kyle’s facing away from Craig and Stan’s table, because Cartman doesn’t look anything like himself from far away, but Kyle’s not wearing anything to disguise himself, other than the uncharacteristic suit; he’d be instantly recognizable if they saw his face, so he can’t risk it. So though he occasionally risks glances back, he’s mostly watching Cartman watch them, as he pretends to look at his menu - and no, Kyle’s not grateful for the excuse to stare at Cartman. He’s getting more and more anxious the longer he looks at him, because he looks like a very pretty girl and it’s confusing Kyle indefinitely.  _It’s still Cartman_ , he tells himself firmly. 

He’s so busy convincing himself that he absolutely can’t find Cartman attractive, that he almost misses the panic in his eyes. 

“What?” Kyle asks, starting to turn, but Cartman reaches out and grabs him, press-on red nails digging into Kyle’s forearm.

“They’re walking over here!”

“Fuck!”

“Quick, kiss me!” 

“What? No!”

“They’ll recognize us from this close, Kahl!”

Kyle wants to argue, wants to come up with an alternative, anything but pressing his lips to Cartman’s, but they’re getting closer and he doesn’t have time - he grabs Cartman’s wrist and pulls him closer, tilting his head to the side and kissing him as chastely as he can - he refuses to let this be remotely passionate. The softly curly bangs of Cartman’s wig fall over both their faces, which is good; it’ll hide them. 

Kyle tries to count in his head -  _ten seconds_ , he thinks,  _that should be good, they’ll be gone by then and I can pull away_ \- but he gets to three before he becomes hyper-aware of the way Cartman’s lips feel against his own. He doesn’t want to think too hard about it, he really doesn’t, but it’s hard to ignore the glossy feel, how he smells faintly of strawberries, how his lips are warm and plush, just like the few girls Kyle’s been lucky enough to kiss. But this isn’t a girl, this is  _Cartman -_ and yet, somehow, when it’s been far longer than ten seconds, Kyle can’t bring himself to pull away. Part of him, the pre-installed horny teen that sits in the back of his mind and yells at him constantly for being more focused on school than getting laid, wants to deepen the kiss, wants to move closer to Cartman, who’s overwhelmingly soft and warm and pretty - but then someone clears their throat and Kyle pulls away, wide-eyed and disoriented.

It’s Kenny, and he’s grinning like a mad man. “Oh man,” he says merrily. “Oh  _man_! Fuckin’ incredible!”

Kyle wants to ask what the hell Kenny is doing at a fancy place like this, but the waiter outfit he’s wearing answers his unspoken question. “Don’t tell  _anyone_ ,” he says instead, quietly, glaring hard so Kenny knows he means business.

Kenny grins at him cryptically, winks at Cartman, then walks away with a joyous spring in his step.

“You’re a bastard,” Kyle says to Cartman, who looks, for once in his life, genuinely at a loss for words. “Kenny’s gonna tell everybody, and every kid in school will know you and I kissed - hell, it won’t take long for our parents to find out! Everyone will think I’m gay, and they’re gonna think I’m gay with  _you_  of all fucking people - you know how pissed my mom is gonna be? Not ‘cause I’m gay, and I’m not! I - I don’t even know what I am, but now people are gonna assume I am, and I won’t even get to have that to myself - fuck, my mom’s gonna be pissed because it’s  _you_. Of all the eligible bastards, she’ll think I wanted  _you_.”

Cartman’s looking at him with a strange mix of confusion and something akin to desire, freaky as that is. “You, uh - okay, bad timing, but do you wanna go out sometime?”

Kyle raises his eyebrows at him. “Are you fucking insane?”

“For you, babe, probably,” Cartman says smoothly. He pushes a curl of hair out of his face and bites his lip, trying for seductive, and Kyle’s genuinely angry that he has some irritating horrible terrible absolutely and completely subconscious desire to kiss him again. 

Kyle looks away before he can get more upset. “We didn’t split up Stan and Craig, and now Kenny thinks we’re dating. This night couldn’t have gone any worse, and it’s all your  _fault_. Why do you have to do things so outlandishly? We could’ve done literally  _anything_  else to get them to break up. But no, you just had to trick me into going on a date with you-” Then it dawns on Kyle, that that’s what this was all about in the first place. Craig and Stan were an afterthought; Cartman wanted an excuse to be with  _Kyle_.

Cartman seems to realize that Kyle’s figured this out, because he has the nerve to look embarrassed. “It was perfect, Kahl,” he says quietly. “How was I supposed to pass up an opportunity like this?”

Kyle feels a rush of different and harshly conflicting emotions - irritation, a flash of hatred, betrayal, irritation again, anger, then something like desire, and passion, and that  _damn_  urge to kiss him again.

He squeezes his eyes shut and takes a few deep breaths. Then he stands up quickly and says, “Let’s go. We’re leaving.”

“Wait, now that my lipstick’s already smudged, I want some bread sticks-”

“Let’s  _go_ ,” Kyle repeats, tugging on Cartman’s arm.

Cartman lets Kyle pull him to his feet, briefly rocking back and forth in his off brand Louie V heels. Now devoid of a reason to hide his crush on Kyle, he smiles happily and says, “You’re lucky I like it rough. Any other girl might slap you for being so rude.”

“You’re not a girl.” Kyle throws a tip down on the table, despite not having ate, and starts pulling Cartman toward the exit. He doesn’t know where Stan and Craig went, or even why they left, but he’s not thinking about them right now.

“No, I’m not, and that  _scares_  you, doesn’t it? Poor widdle baby Kahl, having his first gay panic-”

Kyle turns on him and bares his teeth, ignoring the fact that they’re being stared at. “I would shut the fuck up if I were you,” he growls, without thinking about it, but immediately regrets it when Cartman’s eyes go half-lidded. He can handle homoerotic overtones with a rival - but not with someone who so clearly is into him and who, terrifyingly, Kyle’s admittedly hot for himself.

Cartman goes silent, though, blissfully, as Kyle leads them out of the restaurant. 

Once they’re outside, where it’s fairly empty other than an extended family in the parking lot saying their goodbyes, Kyle turns on Cartman. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Cartman grins at him. He looks like the cat that got the cream - and he looks like that a lot, he’s a smug asshole who gets his way far more often than he deserves to, but this time, things are different, and worse yet, this time, Kyle wants to kiss that self-satisfied smile right off his stupid face. 

But that’s what Cartman wants, and Kyle won’t let him have it. 

So instead, he says, “Are you free this Friday?”

Cartman smiles. 


End file.
